62 Facts About Clem Attlee

1. Clem Attlee once said of Churchill that "cruelty and injustice revolted him".

2. Clem Attlee demonstrated his wisdom by enabling Churchill to become Prime Minister when Neville Chamberlain's Tory government collapsed in May 1940.

3. Clem Attlee built the NHS, gave independence to India and established the modern social security system.

4. Clem Attlee contested in the 1955 election against Antony Eden but was unsuccessful.

5. In 1927, Clem Attlee was part of the Simon commission group.

6. Clem Attlee tells his own story to 1953 in As it Happened.

7. Clem Attlee served as the Deputy Leader for Labour Party after this party suffered heavy lost in 1931.

8. In 1924, Clem Attlee took the position in the government of MacDonald as a minister.

9. In 1922, Clem Attlee was elected in Parliament as the MP for Limehouse for the first time.

10. Clem Attlee was the first person from Labour Party who commanded most members in the British Parliament.

11. Clem Attlee was a symbol of the victory for Labor party.

12. In 1945, Clem Attlee earned an outstanding victory in the election.

13. Clem Attlee was one of only four British prime ministers—Arthur James Balfour, Churchill, and Thatcher were the others—to receive both of these high honours.

14. Clem Attlee gave his full support to the British declaration of war against Germany in 1939, but he was unwilling to join a coalition government under Conservative Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain.

15. Clem Attlee was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of Queen Mary College on 15 December 1948.

16. Clem Attlee was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1947.

17. Clem Attlee proved a loyal ally of the United States at the onset of the Cold War.

18. Clem Attlee was cremated and his ashes were buried at Westminster Abbey.

19. Clem Attlee died peacefully in his sleep of pneumonia, at the age of 84 at Westminster Hospital on 8 October 1967.

20. Clem Attlee lived to see the Labour Party return to power under Harold Wilson in 1964, but to see his old constituency of Walthamstow West fall to the Conservatives in a by-election in September 1967.

21. Clem Attlee retired as Leader of the Labour Party on 7 December 1955, having led the party for twenty years, and on 14 December Hugh Gaitskell was elected as his replacement.

22. At one time, Clem Attlee had favoured Aneurin Bevan to succeed him as leader, but this became problematic after Bevan almost irrevocably split the party.

23. Clem Attlee sponsored the peaceful transition to independence in 1948 of Burma and Ceylon (Sri Lanka).

24. Clem Attlee found that Churchill's viceroy, Field Marshal Wavell, was too imperialistic, too keen on military solutions and too neglectful of Indian political alignments.

25. Clem Attlee was the Labour expert on India and took special charge of decolonisation.

26. Clem Attlee set up the Cripps Mission in 1942, which tried and failed to bring the factions together.

27. Clem Attlee faced strong resistance from the die-hard Conservative imperialists, led by Churchill, who opposed both independence and efforts led by Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin to set up a system of limited local control by Indians themselves.

28. Clem Attlee became the Labour Party expert on India and by 1934 was committed to granting India the same independent dominion status that Canada and Australia recently were given.

29. Clem Attlee orchestrated the granting of independence to India and Pakistan in 1947.

30. Clem Attlee put his trust in the United Nations, rejected notions that the Soviet Union was bent on world conquest, and warned that treating Moscow as an enemy would turn it into one.

31. The first two were closely related, and Clem Attlee was assisted by Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin.

32. In 1937, Clem Attlee wrote a book entitled The Labour Party in Perspective, which sold fairly well, in which he set out some of his views.

33. Clem Attlee has destroyed the last fortress of democracy in Eastern Europe which stood in the way of his ambition.

34. Clem Attlee has overturned the balance of power in Europe.

35. Clem Attlee went on to come first in both the first and second ballots, formally being elected Leader of the Labour Party on 3 December 1935.

36. Clem Attlee admired Oliver Cromwell's strong-armed rule and use of major generals to control England.

37. Clem Attlee was one of only three Labour MPs who had experience of government to retain their seats, along with George Lansbury and Stafford Cripps, accordingly Lansbury was elected Leader unopposed with Attlee as his deputy.

38. Clem Attlee had a fine presence and great oratorical power.

39. Clem Attlee had long been close to MacDonald and now felt betrayed—as did most Labour politicians.

40. Clem Attlee became the British leader most sympathetic to Indian independence, preparing him for his role in deciding on independence in 1947.

41. Clem Attlee negotiated a deal with the Electrical Trade Union so that they would continue to supply power to hospitals, but would end supplies to factories.

42. Clem Attlee opposed the 1926 General Strike, believing that strike action should not be used as a political weapon.

43. Clem Attlee served as MacDonald's Parliamentary Private Secretary for the brief 1922 parliament.

44. At the 1922 general election, Clem Attlee became the Member of Parliament for the constituency of Limehouse in Stepney.

45. Clem Attlee met Violet Millar while on a long trip with friends to Italy in 1921.

46. Clem Attlee would spend most of 1917 training soldiers at various locations in England.

47. Clem Attlee was sent firstly to India, and then back to the UK to recover.

48. Clem Attlee worked briefly as a secretary for Beatrice Webb in 1909, before becoming a secretary for Toynbee Hall.

49. Clem Attlee worked for a time at his father's law firm Druces and Attlee but did not enjoy the work, and had no particular ambition to succeed in the legal profession.

50. Clem Attlee is consistently rated by scholars, critics and the public as one of the greatest British Prime Ministers.

51. Clem Attlee retired after losing the 1955 general election and was elevated to the House of Lords.

52. Clem Attlee continued as Labour leader but had lost his effectiveness by then.

53. Clem Attlee was narrowly defeated by the Conservatives under Churchill in the 1951 general election.

54. Clem Attlee commissioned an independent nuclear deterrent for the UK.

55. Clem Attlee sent British troops to fight in the Malayan Emergency in 1948 and sent the RAF to participate in the Berlin Airlift.

56. Clem Attlee arranged the independence of Burma, and Ceylon (Sri Lanka).

57. Clem Attlee supervised the process by which India was partitioned into India and Pakistan in 1947.

58. Clem Attlee took Labour into the Churchill war ministry in 1940.

59. Clem Attlee remains the longest-ever serving Leader of the Labour Party.

60. Clem Attlee was re-elected with a narrow majority at the 1950 general election.

61. Clem Attlee went on to lead the Labour Party to an unexpected landslide victory at the 1945 general election; forming the first Labour majority government, and a mandate to implement its postwar reforms.

62. Clem Attlee was the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955.